The best businesses have a compelling origin story and George Gombossy’s consumer protection website Connecticut Watchdog started with a doozy. As of 2009 Gombossy had worked at the Hartford Courant for forty-one years: first as a reporter then business editor then as “The Watchdog” a consumer protection columnist. His picture hung on the side of “every bus in Hartford” and his mug smiled from billboards. But in short: the Tribune Company bought the Courant and installed new leadership Gombossy wrote an article criticizing one of the paper’s largest advertisers the article didn’t run executives called him in for a meeting and Gombossy was no longer employed. (The New York Times reported the full details here.)